DP, Dominique Martinez, examines the desert road.

QUEEN OF CACTUS COVE’s desert setting resulted in the longest location scouting process anyone on the team had ever experienced.  The American Film Institute encouraged the team to shoot within the 30-mile zone surrounding Los Angeles to simplify the search.  However, the team was determined to be as true to the story as possible, which meant shooting in the desert.  The team housed and fed their cast and crew for four days.  This put great strain on the film’s meager budget, but the team felt this was necessary to truly capture the tone they were seeking.

Insert car was brought from L.A.

Fifty percent of the film’s locations were at least two and half hours away, making the pre-production process cumbersome.  Every time a team-member wished to scout a potential location, get a location agreement signed, show crew heads where they would be shooting, or make appropriate arrangements for the shoot, five hours on the road were logged.  The driving proved even more challenging with conflicting class schedules, busy LA-centered preparations, and Brenda’s growing baby-belly.

Empty pool in the desert.

The team focused their desert search on the key desert location: the empty pool in the middle of the desert.  Anna and Brenda knew that if the opening scene could sell the desert setting, the other desert locations could be easily improvised.  Unfortunately, an empty pool surrounded by desert was difficult to find.  When Brenda, Dominique and Anna accidentally came upon the Lucerne Valley community pool standing alone in the middle of the desert, they knew it was the perfect location… except for the disgusting, green water in the pool.  Brenda worked diligently with the Lucerne Springs community and managed to convince them to drain the pool and let the team shoot in it.  From then on, the team scouted only for desert locations in Lucerne Valley.  They found their gas station and desert roads within ten minutes of the pool.

Insert car during shot.

The team was concerned about shooting the car scenes in such a distant location, since the car rig was being brought up from Los Angeles.   There was little room for error in getting the rig to this far away destination through LA traffic at the right time of day for appropriate lighting conditions.  The gods were shining on them that day, for surprisingly all went smoothly; the rig arrived on time and the shooting of these scenes went smoothly.

Billie's mustang!

Billie’s blue mustang was a character in itself.  Anna wanted a car that would represent both Billie and Nina… a difficult task given the difference in their personalities.  The blue mustang was perfect, especially with the dent in the front bumper (brand new to the car just days before shooting).  Alia took some of her first driving lessons behind the mustang’s wheel, and soon the mustang became like a cranky but lovable crewmember.  Its brakes were ancient; the air conditioning didn’t function, and getting the car to go above 30 mph was a labor of love.

Nina's Hair Salon

The local settings were much easier to find, although each held its own challenge to secure for the shoot. Nina’s Beauty Salon was the first location discovered, even before Nina existed.  Anna gets her hair cut at Frenchy’s Hair Salon in Burbank, California and, inspired by its fun and unique ambiance, she wrote the salon into the script.  The Pasadena Boys and Girls club served as the film’s tournament setting.  Anna, Dominique, Alys and Scott loved the gym’s square windows and basketball court’s regulation lines on the floor; they supported the geometric visual design the team was building into the visual scheme.  And finally, the Way Station Diner in Newhall had the perfect Cactus Cove, small town feel to it, but it took Brenda weeks of negotiating to convince them to be part of the Cactus Cove world.